Donald Trump Strikes a Blow against International Anti-Semitism

David French:

President Trump’s decision to formally recognize that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and to announce plans to move America’s embassy to the seat of Israel’s government is one of the best, most moral, and important decisions of his young administration. On this issue, he is demonstrating greater resolve than Republican and Democratic presidents before him, and he is defying some of the worst people in the world.

Think I’m overstating this? Think I’m too enthusiastic about an isolated diplomatic maneuver — especially when that maneuver, to quote the New York Times, “isolates the U.S.” and “has drawn a storm of criticism from Arab and European leaders”? Let’s consider some law, history, and context.

First, sovereign nations are entitled to name their capital, and it is the near-universal practice of other nations to locate their embassies in that same capital. I say “near-universal” because the nations of the world have steadfastly refused to recognize Israel’s capital. They’ve steadfastly placed their embassies outside of Jerusalem. They do so in spite of the Jewish people’s ancient connection to the City of David and in spite of the fact that no conceivable peace settlement would turn over the seat of Israel’s government to Palestinian control — even if parts of East Jerusalem are reserved for a Palestinian capital. Israel’s government sits on Israeli land, and it will remain Israeli land.

Yet the international community condemns America for recognizing reality, for treating Israel the way the world treats every other nation. Why?

From the birth of the modern nation-state of Israel, an unholy mixture of anti-Semites and eliminationists have both sought to drive the Jewish people into the sea and — when military measures failed — isolate the Jewish nation diplomatically, militarily, and culturally. Working through the U.N. and enabled by Soviet-bloc (and later) European allies, these anti-Semites and eliminationists have waged unrelenting “lawfare” against Israel. (Lawfare is the abuse of international law and legal processes to accomplish military objectives that can’t be achieved on the battlefield.)

The scam works like this: The U.N. and other international bodies establish rules that apply only to Israel, or they hold Israel to higher standards than any other nation on earth; then, when Israel (or its primary ally, America) object to those unjust rules and double standards, the Arab world threatens unrest, riots, or, at worst, renewed jihad. A cowardly European community goes along, perpetuating injustice in the name of “stability.”

The examples are legion. Time and again the U.N. Human Rights Council and the U.N. General Assembly dedicate more resolutions to condemning Israel than the rest of the world’s nations combined. The world’s Islamic countries vote in unified lockstep against Israel, in spite of the fact that many of these countries are thousands of miles from the Middle East. They’re often motivated by vile anti-Semitic bias, and their populations are shot-through with bigotry. According to a 2013 Anti-Defamation League survey, a whopping 74 percent of North African and Middle Eastern residents registered anti-Semitic beliefs. Even 61 percent of far-away Malaysians have anti-Semitic attitudes.

The U.N., moreover, adjusted its definition of refugees for the special and sole benefit of Palestinians. Contrary to conventional international law, the U.N. treats the descendants of Palestinian war refugees as refugees themselves. Thus, incredibly, the population of Palestinian “refugees” from the 1948 and 1967 conflicts is growing. The result is a perpetual, unique, and artificial crisis, one that is designed specifically to place pressure on one nation on planet Earth: Israel.

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